NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of the Central government on the two pleas moved by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust against the cancellation of their Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license.
These organisations are headed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is one of its members. Former PM Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram are members of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.Issuing notice to the Centre, Justice Jyoti Singh posted the matter for August 23 for a final hearing.
During the hearing, ASG Chetan Sharma raised the issue of the maintainability of the challenge.Now, the judge will decide the aspect of maintainability of the pleas in July before hearing the matter on merits.The licences of the Gandhi family-headed organisations were cancelled after an investigation was carried out by an inter-ministerial committee.
This was after the allegations levelled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation received funds from the embassy of China.After the allegation, the Central government constituted a committee to investigate the alleged violations under different laws like PMLA, FCRA and IT Act. The pleas were filed in January 2023.
In a statement made in 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs had said: “MHA sets up an inter-ministerial committee to coordinate investigations into violation of various legal provisions of PMLA, Income Tax Act, FCRA etc. by Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust & Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust. Spl. Dir of ED will head the committee”.The matter was adjourned from time to time.